BIOGRAPHY

Don Lemon was an American broadcast news journalist who in 2014 started hosting the nightly news program "CNN Tonight" (2014- ). Born and raised in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Lemon's interest in journalism began when he was in college. In addition to attending Louisiana State University, he also majored in broadcast journalism at Brooklyn College, where he would eventually earn his Bachelor's degree. While attending college in New York, Lemon worked as an assistant for the city's prominent news network WNYW. The experience of working on a daily newscast would serve him well in his later years as he embarked on a career as a professional broadcast news journalist. After college Lemon began his career as a weekend news anchor at a local affiliate in Birmingham, Alabama. He later worked at stations in Pennsylvania and Missouri, holding a wide variety of positions, including investigative journalist and nightly news anchor. His first big break came in the early 2000s when he began working for NBC News in New York. Having jumped to the big leagues of network news, Lemon was an almost nightly presence on NBC's "Today" (1952- ), as well as the "Nightly News" (1970- ). Then in 2006 Lemon left NBC to join the 24-hour cable news network CNN. Although he initially worked solely as a correspondent for the network, Lemon started anchoring "CNN Tonight" in 2014, thus becoming one of the network's most visible personalities. In addition to his serious work as a newsman, Lemon has also appeared in a few movie and TV roles, most notably playing himself in "Zoolander 2" (2016) and in a cameo role on the ABC sitcom "Black-ish" (ABC, 2014- ).